Having thought a bit about the question of evolution and suffering and having reflected on the discussion that ensued, I thought I'd delve a little further into the idea of a "cosmic fall". The notion is not alien to Christian tradition but I suppose it does create some tension as regards the other, equally important doctrine to be affirmed: that the world was created good.
Traditionally, Christianity has worked with a two-fold typology for thinking about evil. Thus evil can be considered in its two forms - natural or ontological evil and moral/ethical evil. With this division in place, moral evil has typically been explained with recourse to the Christian doctrine of the fall. Man's nature, though not completely corrupted, has been wounded and his will, though free, yet tends to evil. A horror as monstrous as the holocaust, for example, is attributable to humanity's free will. The question of 'natural evil' presents a different problem for it appears to be no agent through which it comes about.
However, in this post I wish to investigate one avenue for explaining the evil that appears so rife in the 'natural' world: that natural evil itself can be attributed to the nefarious influence of malign spiritual beings. That this will appear an 'outdated' idea, one not fit for 'modern' men and women, I contend that such an understanding is necessary if Christians are to remain free from the sort of rationalizations of evil that seem so repulsive to 'protest' atheists and should seem equally so to Christians.
Of course, I do not wish to revive the ancient heresy of Manichaeism. Orthodox belief has always affirmed that creation is a gift from God who viewed it as "very good". Thus what I am maintaining here is not that creation is the result of the workings of a demiurge, or that it is the product of a pre-cosmic fall from the Pleroma. The doctrine that the world was created ex nihilo is a safeguard against such postulations. But the notion of a cosmic fall does not endanger this. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth": the angels too, were created ex nihilo. And even if such an emphasis on a catalcysmic fall strikes some as far too gnostic, it may well be that we need to discern the kernel of truth that gnosticism contains. As it is, I do not think that this element of truth is something which cannot be found with orthodox Christian belief in any case.
Aquinas deals with the problem of natural evil by arguing that from the perspective of God's perfect ordering of the universe these deficiencies in being are necessary. Now, I would not wish to say that a finite and limited being is in any sense 'evil'. Aquinas does not argue that in any case, rather he argues that evil signifies a privation in being. For a man not to be able to fly is not 'evil', but for a man to be born blind is, as the gift of sight constitues part of his nature. Thus in the passage cited in the discussion on the problem of evil, Aquinas states his view:
"God and nature and any other agent make what is best in the whole, but not what is best in every single part, except in order to the whole, as was said above (47, 2). And the whole itself, which is the universe of creatures, is all the better and more perfect if some things in it can fail in goodness, and do sometimes fail, God not preventing this. This happens, firstly, because "it belongs to Providence not to destroy, but to save nature," as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv); but it belongs to nature that what may fail should sometimes fail; secondly, because, as Augustine says (Enchir. 11), "God is so powerful that He can even make good out of evil." Hence many good things would be taken away if God permitted no evil to exist; for fire would not be generated if air was not corrupted, nor would the life of a lion be preserved unless the ass were killed. Neither would avenging justice nor the patience of a sufferer be praised if there were no injustice." (ST 1, 48, 2, rep to obj. 3)
For Aquinas then, such evils as cancer, whilst causing untold pain and suffering for the victim and those close to him, from the point of view of the ultimate perfection of the universal order, are not 'evil' in any meaningful sense, on the contrary, they themselves can contribute to this ultimate perfection by, for example, being the catalyst for someone to display great patience in their suffering, for another to visit the sick person in hospital and so forth.
Now, Aquinas is a theologian I very much admire, but in this instance I simply cannot agree with him. Does not Aquinas' rationalization of evil as a constituent part of a perfect cosmic ordering fall prey to Ivan Karamazov's argument against God? As D.B. Hart points out in The Doors of the Sea: Dostoyevsky's Christian genius lies not in the perception that the suffering and death in the universe is not morally intelligible but that it would be far worse if it were!
Aquinas' theology was forged to a large extent in the battle against Manichaeism which had reared its ugly head in the heresy of the Cathars. However, whilst it was entirely necessary for Aquinas to do battle on behalf of the doctrine that God's creation is good, it may be the case that in defending it, he underplayed the truth from which the Cathar heresy was a deviation: heresy being an overemphasis on one aspect of a truth.
It is not difficult to affirm Creation's goodness. One experiences countless instances of it in nature: a glorious sunset, a peaceful sea, the majestic flight of an eagle (as you can probably tell, I'm no poet). But it is far less easy to affirm it when one sees, for example, a young mother's body ravaged by cancer: I simply cannot accept that it is entirely natural and part of God's good creation that this should be the case. I believe that a stress on the goodness of creation whilst recognising said creation's fallen nature is absolutely necessary to avoid the Scylla of a cosmic order which entails suffering and death for its ultimate perfection and the Charybdis of Manichaeism.
As regards the question of how all this relates to evolution, it might be said that the fall need not have been an actual, temporal event but a 'mythological' expression for what we recognise to be creation's bondage. Thus whilst there may never have been a literal, 'golden age', the story of the Fall symbolises a cosmic catastrophe that has brought creation to its knees. Thus in Scripture, the enmity which exists in the animal kingdom is not what God intended and the Prophet Isaiah's eschatological vision of nature's redemption involves the cow and the bear grazing together and the lion eating straw with the ox. (Is 11:7-8) Man's redemption has ontological consequences for the whole of creation - as he will once again rule over nature without enmity either between himself and the animal kingdom or within the animal kingdom itself. A "cosmic fall" calls for a "Cosmic Christ" to redeem us. But even here the notion of a literal fall does not need to be discarded quite so easily as the fall of man could have occurred in the context of an already disordered creation (due to the rupture of sin into creation with the rebellion of the angels).
And before it is objected that this is simply a return to a mythological mindset we have long since left behind, the notion that animal predation is not 'natural' was held by none other than C.S. Lewis who associated it with the ancient Satanic rebellion in his book, The Problem of Pain. Lewis is especially interesting in this context because he saw there really was a problem with animal suffering. Again, Aquinas on this score, was unfortunately in tune with his age and saw no real issue with the suffering of animals, for they were merely dumb brutes, devoid of reason and placed on earth for the use of humans. Lewis also ties this in with the notion that humanity may have had a redemptive role to play in "subduing" nature and restoring its original order. Of course, the fall of man can only have exacerbated this problem.
I think it is also important to point out that the view of a Satanic distortion of nature and its processes is not necessarily inconsistent with a Thomist position. As E.L. Mascall (an Anglo-Catholic thomist) points out:
"Insofar as the evolutionary process may have been distorted before the advent of man, it is reasonable to explain this distortion by the common Christian doctrine that one of the functions which God has committed to the angels is the supervision of the lower creation, so that the defection of certain of the angels has had as one of its consequences a disorganization of the material world and the dislocation of its functions." (quoted in Andrew Linzey's Animal Theology). Aquinas held that creation was chiefly governed by angels.
Modern philosophers such as Alvin Platinga also subscribe to this view so one can see that it is not the sole preserve of "fundamentalists".
As I remarked in my post on evolution, the acceptance that God's will for creation includes predation, suffering and death leaves us with a very strange God indeed and one that will inevitably tie us up in theodicies that ought to leave us cold.
In an age where there are abundant calls for theology to shed its "false humility", to no longer let itself be cowered into proclaiming only what is deemed acceptable to secular reason, it may be time to bring the notion of a "cosmic fall" back.
Monday, September 17, 2007
On the notion of a Cosmic Fall
Having thought a bit about the question of evolution and suffering and having reflected on the discussion that ensued, I thought I'd delve a little further into the idea of a "cosmic fall". The notion is not alien to Christian tradition but I suppose it does create some tension as regards the other, equally important doctrine to be affirmed: that the world was created good.
Traditionally, Christianity has worked with a two-fold typology for thinking about evil. Thus evil can be considered in its two forms - natural or ontological evil and moral/ethical evil. With this division in place, moral evil has typically been explained with recourse to the Christian doctrine of the fall. Man's nature, though not completely corrupted, has been wounded and his will, though free, yet tends to evil. A horror as monstrous as the holocaust, for example, is attributable to humanity's free will. The question of 'natural evil' presents a different problem for it appears to be no agent through which it comes about.
However, in this post I wish to investigate one avenue for explaining the evil that appears so rife in the 'natural' world: that natural evil itself can be attributed to the nefarious influence of malign spiritual beings. That this will appear an 'outdated' idea, one not fit for 'modern' men and women, I contend that such an understanding is necessary if Christians are to remain free from the sort of rationalizations of evil that seem so repulsive to 'protest' atheists and should seem equally so to Christians.
Of course, I do not wish to revive the ancient heresy of Manichaeism. Orthodox belief has always affirmed that creation is a gift from God who viewed it as "very good". Thus what I am maintaining here is not that creation is the result of the workings of a demiurge, or that it is the product of a pre-cosmic fall from the Pleroma. The doctrine that the world was created ex nihilo is a safeguard against such postulations. But the notion of a cosmic fall does not endanger this. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth": the angels too, were created ex nihilo. And even if such an emphasis on a catalcysmic fall strikes some as far too gnostic, it may well be that we need to discern the kernel of truth that gnosticism contains. As it is, I do not think that this element of truth is something which cannot be found with orthodox Christian belief in any case.
Aquinas deals with the problem of natural evil by arguing that from the perspective of God's perfect ordering of the universe these deficiencies in being are necessary. Now, I would not wish to say that a finite and limited being is in any sense 'evil'. Aquinas does not argue that in any case, rather he argues that evil signifies a privation in being. For a man not to be able to fly is not 'evil', but for a man to be born blind is, as the gift of sight constitues part of his nature. Thus in the passage cited in the discussion on the problem of evil, Aquinas states his view:
"God and nature and any other agent make what is best in the whole, but not what is best in every single part, except in order to the whole, as was said above (47, 2). And the whole itself, which is the universe of creatures, is all the better and more perfect if some things in it can fail in goodness, and do sometimes fail, God not preventing this. This happens, firstly, because "it belongs to Providence not to destroy, but to save nature," as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv); but it belongs to nature that what may fail should sometimes fail; secondly, because, as Augustine says (Enchir. 11), "God is so powerful that He can even make good out of evil." Hence many good things would be taken away if God permitted no evil to exist; for fire would not be generated if air was not corrupted, nor would the life of a lion be preserved unless the ass were killed. Neither would avenging justice nor the patience of a sufferer be praised if there were no injustice." (ST 1, 48, 2, rep to obj. 3)
For Aquinas then, such evils as cancer, whilst causing untold pain and suffering for the victim and those close to him, from the point of view of the ultimate perfection of the universal order, are not 'evil' in any meaningful sense, on the contrary, they themselves can contribute to this ultimate perfection by, for example, being the catalyst for someone to display great patience in their suffering, for another to visit the sick person in hospital and so forth.
Now, Aquinas is a theologian I very much admire, but in this instance I simply cannot agree with him. Does not Aquinas' rationalization of evil as a constituent part of a perfect cosmic ordering fall prey to Ivan Karamazov's argument against God? As D.B. Hart points out in The Doors of the Sea: Dostoyevsky's Christian genius lies not in the perception that the suffering and death in the universe is not morally intelligible but that it would be far worse if it were!
Aquinas' theology was forged to a large extent in the battle against Manichaeism which had reared its ugly head in the heresy of the Cathars. However, whilst it was entirely necessary for Aquinas to do battle on behalf of the doctrine that God's creation is good, it may be the case that in defending it, he underplayed the truth from which the Cathar heresy was a deviation: heresy being an overemphasis on one aspect of a truth.
It is not difficult to affirm Creation's goodness. One experiences countless instances of it in nature: a glorious sunset, a peaceful sea, the majestic flight of an eagle (as you can probably tell, I'm no poet). But it is far less easy to affirm it when one sees, for example, a young mother's body ravaged by cancer: I simply cannot accept that it is entirely natural and part of God's good creation that this should be the case. I believe that a stress on the goodness of creation whilst recognising said creation's fallen nature is absolutely necessary to avoid the Scylla of a cosmic order which entails suffering and death for its ultimate perfection and the Charybdis of Manichaeism.
As regards the question of how all this relates to evolution, it might be said that the fall need not have been an actual, temporal event but a 'mythological' expression for what we recognise to be creation's bondage. Thus whilst there may never have been a literal, 'golden age', the story of the Fall symbolises a cosmic catastrophe that has brought creation to its knees. Thus in Scripture, the enmity which exists in the animal kingdom is not what God intended and the Prophet Isaiah's eschatological vision of nature's redemption involves the cow and the bear grazing together and the lion eating straw with the ox. (Is 11:7-8) Man's redemption has ontological consequences for the whole of creation - as he will once again rule over nature without enmity either between himself and the animal kingdom or within the animal kingdom itself. A "cosmic fall" calls for a "Cosmic Christ" to redeem us. But even here the notion of a literal fall does not need to be discarded quite so easily as the fall of man could have occurred in the context of an already disordered creation (due to the rupture of sin into creation with the rebellion of the angels).
And before it is objected that this is simply a return to a mythological mindset we have long since left behind, the notion that animal predation is not 'natural' was held by none other than C.S. Lewis who associated it with the ancient Satanic rebellion in his book, The Problem of Pain. Lewis is especially interesting in this context because he saw there really was a problem with animal suffering. Again, Aquinas on this score, was unfortunately in tune with his age and saw no real issue with the suffering of animals, for they were merely dumb brutes, devoid of reason and placed on earth for the use of humans. Lewis also ties this in with the notion that humanity may have had a redemptive role to play in "subduing" nature and restoring its original order. Of course, the fall of man can only have exacerbated this problem.
I think it is also important to point out that the view of a Satanic distortion of nature and its processes is not necessarily inconsistent with a Thomist position. As E.L. Mascall (an Anglo-Catholic thomist) points out:
"Insofar as the evolutionary process may have been distorted before the advent of man, it is reasonable to explain this distortion by the common Christian doctrine that one of the functions which God has committed to the angels is the supervision of the lower creation, so that the defection of certain of the angels has had as one of its consequences a disorganization of the material world and the dislocation of its functions." (quoted in Andrew Linzey's Animal Theology). Aquinas held that creation was chiefly governed by angels.
Modern philosophers such as Alvin Platinga also subscribe to this view so one can see that it is not the sole preserve of "fundamentalists".
As I remarked in my post on evolution, the acceptance that God's will for creation includes predation, suffering and death leaves us with a very strange God indeed and one that will inevitably tie us up in theodicies that ought to leave us cold.
In an age where there are abundant calls for theology to shed its "false humility", to no longer let itself be cowered into proclaiming only what is deemed acceptable to secular reason, it may be time to bring the notion of a "cosmic fall" back.
Traditionally, Christianity has worked with a two-fold typology for thinking about evil. Thus evil can be considered in its two forms - natural or ontological evil and moral/ethical evil. With this division in place, moral evil has typically been explained with recourse to the Christian doctrine of the fall. Man's nature, though not completely corrupted, has been wounded and his will, though free, yet tends to evil. A horror as monstrous as the holocaust, for example, is attributable to humanity's free will. The question of 'natural evil' presents a different problem for it appears to be no agent through which it comes about.
However, in this post I wish to investigate one avenue for explaining the evil that appears so rife in the 'natural' world: that natural evil itself can be attributed to the nefarious influence of malign spiritual beings. That this will appear an 'outdated' idea, one not fit for 'modern' men and women, I contend that such an understanding is necessary if Christians are to remain free from the sort of rationalizations of evil that seem so repulsive to 'protest' atheists and should seem equally so to Christians.
Of course, I do not wish to revive the ancient heresy of Manichaeism. Orthodox belief has always affirmed that creation is a gift from God who viewed it as "very good". Thus what I am maintaining here is not that creation is the result of the workings of a demiurge, or that it is the product of a pre-cosmic fall from the Pleroma. The doctrine that the world was created ex nihilo is a safeguard against such postulations. But the notion of a cosmic fall does not endanger this. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth": the angels too, were created ex nihilo. And even if such an emphasis on a catalcysmic fall strikes some as far too gnostic, it may well be that we need to discern the kernel of truth that gnosticism contains. As it is, I do not think that this element of truth is something which cannot be found with orthodox Christian belief in any case.
Aquinas deals with the problem of natural evil by arguing that from the perspective of God's perfect ordering of the universe these deficiencies in being are necessary. Now, I would not wish to say that a finite and limited being is in any sense 'evil'. Aquinas does not argue that in any case, rather he argues that evil signifies a privation in being. For a man not to be able to fly is not 'evil', but for a man to be born blind is, as the gift of sight constitues part of his nature. Thus in the passage cited in the discussion on the problem of evil, Aquinas states his view:
"God and nature and any other agent make what is best in the whole, but not what is best in every single part, except in order to the whole, as was said above (47, 2). And the whole itself, which is the universe of creatures, is all the better and more perfect if some things in it can fail in goodness, and do sometimes fail, God not preventing this. This happens, firstly, because "it belongs to Providence not to destroy, but to save nature," as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv); but it belongs to nature that what may fail should sometimes fail; secondly, because, as Augustine says (Enchir. 11), "God is so powerful that He can even make good out of evil." Hence many good things would be taken away if God permitted no evil to exist; for fire would not be generated if air was not corrupted, nor would the life of a lion be preserved unless the ass were killed. Neither would avenging justice nor the patience of a sufferer be praised if there were no injustice." (ST 1, 48, 2, rep to obj. 3)
For Aquinas then, such evils as cancer, whilst causing untold pain and suffering for the victim and those close to him, from the point of view of the ultimate perfection of the universal order, are not 'evil' in any meaningful sense, on the contrary, they themselves can contribute to this ultimate perfection by, for example, being the catalyst for someone to display great patience in their suffering, for another to visit the sick person in hospital and so forth.
Now, Aquinas is a theologian I very much admire, but in this instance I simply cannot agree with him. Does not Aquinas' rationalization of evil as a constituent part of a perfect cosmic ordering fall prey to Ivan Karamazov's argument against God? As D.B. Hart points out in The Doors of the Sea: Dostoyevsky's Christian genius lies not in the perception that the suffering and death in the universe is not morally intelligible but that it would be far worse if it were!
Aquinas' theology was forged to a large extent in the battle against Manichaeism which had reared its ugly head in the heresy of the Cathars. However, whilst it was entirely necessary for Aquinas to do battle on behalf of the doctrine that God's creation is good, it may be the case that in defending it, he underplayed the truth from which the Cathar heresy was a deviation: heresy being an overemphasis on one aspect of a truth.
It is not difficult to affirm Creation's goodness. One experiences countless instances of it in nature: a glorious sunset, a peaceful sea, the majestic flight of an eagle (as you can probably tell, I'm no poet). But it is far less easy to affirm it when one sees, for example, a young mother's body ravaged by cancer: I simply cannot accept that it is entirely natural and part of God's good creation that this should be the case. I believe that a stress on the goodness of creation whilst recognising said creation's fallen nature is absolutely necessary to avoid the Scylla of a cosmic order which entails suffering and death for its ultimate perfection and the Charybdis of Manichaeism.
As regards the question of how all this relates to evolution, it might be said that the fall need not have been an actual, temporal event but a 'mythological' expression for what we recognise to be creation's bondage. Thus whilst there may never have been a literal, 'golden age', the story of the Fall symbolises a cosmic catastrophe that has brought creation to its knees. Thus in Scripture, the enmity which exists in the animal kingdom is not what God intended and the Prophet Isaiah's eschatological vision of nature's redemption involves the cow and the bear grazing together and the lion eating straw with the ox. (Is 11:7-8) Man's redemption has ontological consequences for the whole of creation - as he will once again rule over nature without enmity either between himself and the animal kingdom or within the animal kingdom itself. A "cosmic fall" calls for a "Cosmic Christ" to redeem us. But even here the notion of a literal fall does not need to be discarded quite so easily as the fall of man could have occurred in the context of an already disordered creation (due to the rupture of sin into creation with the rebellion of the angels).
And before it is objected that this is simply a return to a mythological mindset we have long since left behind, the notion that animal predation is not 'natural' was held by none other than C.S. Lewis who associated it with the ancient Satanic rebellion in his book, The Problem of Pain. Lewis is especially interesting in this context because he saw there really was a problem with animal suffering. Again, Aquinas on this score, was unfortunately in tune with his age and saw no real issue with the suffering of animals, for they were merely dumb brutes, devoid of reason and placed on earth for the use of humans. Lewis also ties this in with the notion that humanity may have had a redemptive role to play in "subduing" nature and restoring its original order. Of course, the fall of man can only have exacerbated this problem.
I think it is also important to point out that the view of a Satanic distortion of nature and its processes is not necessarily inconsistent with a Thomist position. As E.L. Mascall (an Anglo-Catholic thomist) points out:
"Insofar as the evolutionary process may have been distorted before the advent of man, it is reasonable to explain this distortion by the common Christian doctrine that one of the functions which God has committed to the angels is the supervision of the lower creation, so that the defection of certain of the angels has had as one of its consequences a disorganization of the material world and the dislocation of its functions." (quoted in Andrew Linzey's Animal Theology). Aquinas held that creation was chiefly governed by angels.
Modern philosophers such as Alvin Platinga also subscribe to this view so one can see that it is not the sole preserve of "fundamentalists".
As I remarked in my post on evolution, the acceptance that God's will for creation includes predation, suffering and death leaves us with a very strange God indeed and one that will inevitably tie us up in theodicies that ought to leave us cold.
In an age where there are abundant calls for theology to shed its "false humility", to no longer let itself be cowered into proclaiming only what is deemed acceptable to secular reason, it may be time to bring the notion of a "cosmic fall" back.
8 comments:
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Eric Lee said...
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David,
This is a really good post, thank you. I haven't read D.B. Hart's Doors of the Sea book just yet, but I have read his Beauty of the Infinite, and in that book, I am reminded by your comment above where you said:
"...it may well be that we need to discern the kernel of truth that gnosticism contains..."
--I am reminded that D.B. Hart appropriates the Gnostic term 'pleroma' a lot in BoI. I think he is also trying to make this properly Christian. I don't know if he does this in his anti-theodicy theodicy book or not.
Only being raised in a few various Protestant traditions (Nazarene and "non-denominational," whatever that is), and, not having read any C.S. Lewis besides some of the Narnia books, I'm still fairly new to the "cosmic fall" idea, but it definitely sounds interesting.
Good reflections.
Peace,
Eric -
September 18, 2007 at 9:52 PM
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DJW said...
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Hi Eric,
After reflecting on the discussion which followed the evolution post I actually emailed Professor Hart asking him if he could shed any light on the issue and he replied to me saying that "think a little bit like a gnostic and you will be near to the Pauline imagery of the first and last Adam" (I have to say I was surprised and very pleased that he actually bothered to reply to me, and considering the accusations I've heard against him - that he is extremely arrogant and whatnot - it demonstrated that he is not above helping out a simple enquirer.
I think that's what I've tried to bring out a bit in this post. Whilst I'm no 'gnostic', the sort of cataclysmic fall they speak of is something which perhaps needs to be emphasised more, whilst keeping it within the bounds of orthodox faith (which as I've explained, I hope, is possible).
Thanks for your comments,
David -
September 18, 2007 at 10:20 PM
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David W. Congdon said...
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David,
You have a lot here worth thinking about. I think a cosmic fall is absolutely essential to the Christian faith, and I'm a bit surprised to hear that there are theologians who reject it. On this point, I think Maximus Confessor is especially helpful. I particularly recommend the selection of his writings entitled, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ.
Maximus understands that the Christ-event is a cosmic and universal one which encompasses all of created reality. This follows from his understanding of the fall as the introduction of pain and death into the world. Mortality is itself the condemnation of Adam's original sin. Interestingly enough, Maximus also doesn't really hold to an original state of perfection in actual time and space. It is more of a logical necessity than actual reality.
My only question would be your insistence on created spiritual beings like angels and demons. I think we are best off being agnostic about their existence. We certainly do not need them in order to maintain a cosmic view of sin and redemption. And there are plenty of reasons to discard them from our theology, at least in any positive sense. As a kind of limit-language, they might work. -
September 19, 2007 at 12:55 PM
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DJW said...
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Hi,
As far as I'm concerned, it's not really an option to discard the existence of angels. It is after all a de fide doctrine of the Catholic faith and thus not really negotiable. Of course, quite what these created spiritual beings are imagined to be like is another matter entirely.
In truth, I think they also serve a useful explanatory purpose as regards a cosmic view of the fall and the entire weight of Scripture and tradition is behind them. -
September 19, 2007 at 1:12 PM
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Lee said...
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Hi David,
This is another terrific and thought-provoking post. And however hesitant I am to take issue with someone as erudite as DB Hart, I wonder if there isn't a danger of skating too close to gnosticism here.
My reasoning is this, if science can tie pain and suffering to fairly fundamental aspects of the universe (and I think it's plausible to say this can be done), then it starts to look like we have little or no cognitive access to what an "unfallen" creation would even look like. For instance, predation isn't an accidental feature of life as we know it, it's woven deeply into its fabric, at least as far as we can tell. So all life would have to be a result of "fallen" creation - in what sense then can we speak of it as good?(Incidentally, at some point isn't this line of thought going to wreak havoc with traditional natural law ethics which presumes that we have some kind of knowledge of what various creatures are properly oriented to as a function of their natures?)
Also, I'm not convinced that positing a cosmic fall gets one out of the theodicy game, for, even if it avoids the question of why God created the world this way, it just raises the question why God permits the continued existence of the kinds of horrors that characterize the natural world. And this seems like it'll just give rise to the familiar theodicy strategies (free will, greater good, etc.) that Hart et al. scorn.
Finally, I'm very sympathetic to Andrew Linzey's concern that predation not have the last word, as it were. But I wonder if another viable option would be to see creation as "unfinished" and headed toward a goal of being without violence and suffering? Frankly I'm not happy with any of the options on the table - each one seems to have considerable drawbacks. -
September 19, 2007 at 7:00 PM
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DJW said...
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Hi Lee,
I think you and I are very much in the same boat regarding this issue. I'm not particularly comfortable with any of the options and my thoughts in this post are just the result of my wrestling with the problem as it were.
I get your point about veering too close to gnosticism, which is why I tried to tie the idea of a cosmic fall in with the undeniably traditionally grounded narrative of the fall of the angels. This may very well present problems of its own but I feel it at least has the benefit of approaching the 'truth' underlying some of the Gnostic speculations whilst remaining within the orbit of orthodox faith.
Again, I agree with your point that we have no real access to what an 'unfallen' creation would be like. However, as lame as this response may sound, I feel there is 'something' which makes us uneasy with the idea that the world as we know it was God's intention all along, a sort of intuitive grasp that things are out of joint. This may not be a very satisfactory answer but I'm sure it's something most people could relate to: the very fact we grapple with these issues and that they cause us great consternation would appear to be proof of this.
Where this leaves the notion of 'natural law' I don't know. To be honest I hadn't even thought about it! That said, I think there is more to natural law than the mere 'reading off' from nature the way things should be. For example, someone like Newman who I've posted a fair bit about did not really have much sympathy with the idea that 'nature' revealed very much about how we should live our lives, yet his emphasis on the role of conscience surely also falls under the rubric of 'natural law'?
I realise that this doesn't dispense with the problem of evil but on a certain level it makes things (as far as I'm concerned) slightly easier to accept. I'm not really sure that Hart really does denigrate the 'free will' defence in his book and it was my impression that he ultimately invokes it. For example:
"one is confronted with this bare choice: either one embraces the mystery of created freedom and accepts that the union of free spiritual creatures with the God of love is a thing so wonderful that the power of creation to enslave itself to death must be permitted by God; or one judges that not even such rational freedom is worth the risk of a cosmic fall and the terrible injustice of the consequences that follow from it."
and: "God may permit evil to have a history of its own so as not to despoil creatures of their destiny of free union with him in love, but he is not the sole and irresistible agency shaping that history according to eternal arbitrary decrees."
I don't think there really is any other theodicy available other than some version of the free will defence although the problem of evil will forever remain shrouded in mystery and will ultimately prove intractable.
As for the notion of an 'unfinished creation': I'm simply not comfortable with it and don't really see how it fits in with the grand Christian narrative of creation, fall and redemption. That and the fact that it again creates serious problems as regards theodicy.
Anyway, thanks for your insights and comments!
David -
September 19, 2007 at 11:48 PM
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Anonymous said...
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David,
As I said earlier, I was not, nor am I now, at odds with these sentiments. If you were only familiar with my relationship to the animals I share my life with, you would now just how true that is.
And, although I would personally like to sit with the moral identification of evil a bit longer, in order to see what gems it might still yield, I think this is an excellent reflection. Thank you very much for it. -
September 19, 2007 at 11:50 PM
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DJW said...
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JD,
I wouldn't for a moment wish to be taken as insinuating that you don't care about these issues.
It was in part your comments in the original post about evoliution that had me reflecting on whether this idea really was a sort of flirting with Gnosticism. And perhaps it is, although I'm no longer so sure that that de facto makes it a 'bad' thing.
And again these are just reflections arising out of my particular struggles with these issues and any debate is always welcome.
thanks. -
September 20, 2007 at 12:07 AM
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8 comments:
David,
This is a really good post, thank you. I haven't read D.B. Hart's Doors of the Sea book just yet, but I have read his Beauty of the Infinite, and in that book, I am reminded by your comment above where you said:
"...it may well be that we need to discern the kernel of truth that gnosticism contains..."
--I am reminded that D.B. Hart appropriates the Gnostic term 'pleroma' a lot in BoI. I think he is also trying to make this properly Christian. I don't know if he does this in his anti-theodicy theodicy book or not.
Only being raised in a few various Protestant traditions (Nazarene and "non-denominational," whatever that is), and, not having read any C.S. Lewis besides some of the Narnia books, I'm still fairly new to the "cosmic fall" idea, but it definitely sounds interesting.
Good reflections.
Peace,
Eric
Hi Eric,
After reflecting on the discussion which followed the evolution post I actually emailed Professor Hart asking him if he could shed any light on the issue and he replied to me saying that "think a little bit like a gnostic and you will be near to the Pauline imagery of the first and last Adam" (I have to say I was surprised and very pleased that he actually bothered to reply to me, and considering the accusations I've heard against him - that he is extremely arrogant and whatnot - it demonstrated that he is not above helping out a simple enquirer.
I think that's what I've tried to bring out a bit in this post. Whilst I'm no 'gnostic', the sort of cataclysmic fall they speak of is something which perhaps needs to be emphasised more, whilst keeping it within the bounds of orthodox faith (which as I've explained, I hope, is possible).
Thanks for your comments,
David
David,
You have a lot here worth thinking about. I think a cosmic fall is absolutely essential to the Christian faith, and I'm a bit surprised to hear that there are theologians who reject it. On this point, I think Maximus Confessor is especially helpful. I particularly recommend the selection of his writings entitled, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ.
Maximus understands that the Christ-event is a cosmic and universal one which encompasses all of created reality. This follows from his understanding of the fall as the introduction of pain and death into the world. Mortality is itself the condemnation of Adam's original sin. Interestingly enough, Maximus also doesn't really hold to an original state of perfection in actual time and space. It is more of a logical necessity than actual reality.
My only question would be your insistence on created spiritual beings like angels and demons. I think we are best off being agnostic about their existence. We certainly do not need them in order to maintain a cosmic view of sin and redemption. And there are plenty of reasons to discard them from our theology, at least in any positive sense. As a kind of limit-language, they might work.
Hi,
As far as I'm concerned, it's not really an option to discard the existence of angels. It is after all a de fide doctrine of the Catholic faith and thus not really negotiable. Of course, quite what these created spiritual beings are imagined to be like is another matter entirely.
In truth, I think they also serve a useful explanatory purpose as regards a cosmic view of the fall and the entire weight of Scripture and tradition is behind them.
Hi David,
This is another terrific and thought-provoking post. And however hesitant I am to take issue with someone as erudite as DB Hart, I wonder if there isn't a danger of skating too close to gnosticism here.
My reasoning is this, if science can tie pain and suffering to fairly fundamental aspects of the universe (and I think it's plausible to say this can be done), then it starts to look like we have little or no cognitive access to what an "unfallen" creation would even look like. For instance, predation isn't an accidental feature of life as we know it, it's woven deeply into its fabric, at least as far as we can tell. So all life would have to be a result of "fallen" creation - in what sense then can we speak of it as good?(Incidentally, at some point isn't this line of thought going to wreak havoc with traditional natural law ethics which presumes that we have some kind of knowledge of what various creatures are properly oriented to as a function of their natures?)
Also, I'm not convinced that positing a cosmic fall gets one out of the theodicy game, for, even if it avoids the question of why God created the world this way, it just raises the question why God permits the continued existence of the kinds of horrors that characterize the natural world. And this seems like it'll just give rise to the familiar theodicy strategies (free will, greater good, etc.) that Hart et al. scorn.
Finally, I'm very sympathetic to Andrew Linzey's concern that predation not have the last word, as it were. But I wonder if another viable option would be to see creation as "unfinished" and headed toward a goal of being without violence and suffering? Frankly I'm not happy with any of the options on the table - each one seems to have considerable drawbacks.
Hi Lee,
I think you and I are very much in the same boat regarding this issue. I'm not particularly comfortable with any of the options and my thoughts in this post are just the result of my wrestling with the problem as it were.
I get your point about veering too close to gnosticism, which is why I tried to tie the idea of a cosmic fall in with the undeniably traditionally grounded narrative of the fall of the angels. This may very well present problems of its own but I feel it at least has the benefit of approaching the 'truth' underlying some of the Gnostic speculations whilst remaining within the orbit of orthodox faith.
Again, I agree with your point that we have no real access to what an 'unfallen' creation would be like. However, as lame as this response may sound, I feel there is 'something' which makes us uneasy with the idea that the world as we know it was God's intention all along, a sort of intuitive grasp that things are out of joint. This may not be a very satisfactory answer but I'm sure it's something most people could relate to: the very fact we grapple with these issues and that they cause us great consternation would appear to be proof of this.
Where this leaves the notion of 'natural law' I don't know. To be honest I hadn't even thought about it! That said, I think there is more to natural law than the mere 'reading off' from nature the way things should be. For example, someone like Newman who I've posted a fair bit about did not really have much sympathy with the idea that 'nature' revealed very much about how we should live our lives, yet his emphasis on the role of conscience surely also falls under the rubric of 'natural law'?
I realise that this doesn't dispense with the problem of evil but on a certain level it makes things (as far as I'm concerned) slightly easier to accept. I'm not really sure that Hart really does denigrate the 'free will' defence in his book and it was my impression that he ultimately invokes it. For example:
"one is confronted with this bare choice: either one embraces the mystery of created freedom and accepts that the union of free spiritual creatures with the God of love is a thing so wonderful that the power of creation to enslave itself to death must be permitted by God; or one judges that not even such rational freedom is worth the risk of a cosmic fall and the terrible injustice of the consequences that follow from it."
and: "God may permit evil to have a history of its own so as not to despoil creatures of their destiny of free union with him in love, but he is not the sole and irresistible agency shaping that history according to eternal arbitrary decrees."
I don't think there really is any other theodicy available other than some version of the free will defence although the problem of evil will forever remain shrouded in mystery and will ultimately prove intractable.
As for the notion of an 'unfinished creation': I'm simply not comfortable with it and don't really see how it fits in with the grand Christian narrative of creation, fall and redemption. That and the fact that it again creates serious problems as regards theodicy.
Anyway, thanks for your insights and comments!
David
David,
As I said earlier, I was not, nor am I now, at odds with these sentiments. If you were only familiar with my relationship to the animals I share my life with, you would now just how true that is.
And, although I would personally like to sit with the moral identification of evil a bit longer, in order to see what gems it might still yield, I think this is an excellent reflection. Thank you very much for it.
JD,
I wouldn't for a moment wish to be taken as insinuating that you don't care about these issues.
It was in part your comments in the original post about evoliution that had me reflecting on whether this idea really was a sort of flirting with Gnosticism. And perhaps it is, although I'm no longer so sure that that de facto makes it a 'bad' thing.
And again these are just reflections arising out of my particular struggles with these issues and any debate is always welcome.
thanks.
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